As the economy slips ever farther down the black hole of imaginary values and criminal greed, the looming necessity for using this crossroads of history to re-make our energy future has moved the issues up on the To-Do list. America’s automakers are lining up, hats in hand, to obtain enough funding to keep their (union) workers employed, and the funds they want may come attached to serious strings that require more gas-efficient cars, hybrids, flex-fuel and even new lines of plug-in electric cars to help get us off our addiction to other nations’ oil.
Which then begs questions about what sources of electrical energy we need to develop that do not spew greenhouse gases into the air, leave us with millions of tons of toxic or radioactive industrial waste, and cause serious detrimental health effects (and death) to the population. Following on the issue of our choices for future development is the antiquated state of our electrical grid, which is both inefficient and dangerously likely to fail altogether without much trouble.
Fact is, energy use conservation could make a more serious dent in our consumption without doing anything at all. This is what happened this past summer when gasoline prices climbed to around $5 per gallon, and diesel prices became inverted. Millions of people limited their driving, pooled for shopping excursions, and stayed home instead of driving long distances for vacation. Petroleum usage plummeted, which informs us that we don’t really have to use as much as we do. Changing light bulbs and turning off lights and appliances and turning down the thermostat can save quite a bit of our generation capacity too, but that will of course jump when we have to charge our cars at night.
But the inefficiency of the grid system itself wastes ~30% of what we already do generate. In order to diversify our sources, we are going to need to modernize the grid to lose less of the available ‘trons between the wind or wave farm and our refrigerators. The Obama transition team is already looking into a possible massive CCC-type project to modernize the grid, and with a genuine scientist at the head of the Department of Energy (Steven Chu), we might expect more forward-looking options for how to do that than the old-timers in the outgoing administration could ever have offered.
Meanwhile, many states and industrial concerns are planning for the alternative energy sources that the new grid will rely upon for generation capacity. Since there’s no such thing as “Clean Coal,” many planners would dearly love to get away from coal and nuclear plants (that take decades to bring on-line and are increasingly expensive). Wind, wave, geothermal, hydroelectric, there are many possibilities to be developed that not only don’t emit greenhouse gases, but also don’t emit waste heat into the environment like boiler and heat transfer systems do.
The Industrial Wind Action Group understands the grid issue better than many, as the siting of industrial-strength wind farms in regions of the country that enjoy steady winds enough to achieve peak performance is going to need transmission accessibility from parts of the country that managed to get electrified mostly as an afterthought. There are even some fairly radical ideas out there about concentrating wind farms in the midwest by swapping-out government-owned land in the far west for a huge reserve in the heartland. Even the investor class is getting in on the action, as Great Ideas: Where the Buffalo Roam… Turbines Spin from the Common Sense Investor demonstrates.
We’ll keep up with developments in all areas of alternative power research and development as well as initiatives to modernize the grid. Stay tuned!
Links:
US Electric grid needs modernization
A Vision for a Modernized Electric Grid: Clean Infrastructure for a 21st Century Economy
Industrial Wind Action Group
Great Ideas: Where the Buffalo Roam… Turbines Spin
What is an Intelligent Grid?
As the Excitement of the national party conventions fades and we move into the debate phase, Republican Presidential candidate John McCain has submitted his responses to the 14 questions posed by the crew at Science Debate 2008. Democrat Barack Obama submitted his responses previously, and the SD08 website now has the two candidate’s responses listed side by side for easy comparison.
It would be great to see some of these questions come up in the debates, so that follow-ups to the positions could be explored.
Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama has submitted his Answers to the Top 14 Science Questions facing America. Drawing on the expertise of a squadron of science, economic, foreign policy and educational advisors that includes several committed Nobel Laureates, many will be happy to get the religious and political ideology out of the way and really start addressing these issues.
Please go to the ScienceDebate 2008 website, take a hard look at Obama’s answers for our future, and don’t forget to drop the crew a dime (or ten) on your way out. These folks have been hard at it since November of last year, and have gathered some very impressive institutional support. The future is important to all of us – and our children – and the future needs the very best science we can possibly field to meet it head-on.
University of Illinois crop sciences researchers released results of the largest-ever field trial of its kind in the US for growing a giant perennial grass Miscanthus x giganteus, reporting that this crop could significantly reduce the acreage necessary to meet government biofuels production goals.
Rather than re-dedicating a full 25% of US cropland to biofuels – something that would put a serious dent in food production and increase the price of everything grown – Miscanthus would require re-dedication of just 9.3% of current agricultural acreage. The findings were reported in the August issue of the journal Global Change Biology.
Researchers were judging raw amount of biomass generated each year from this perennial (meaning it regrows itself every season from roots without reseeding), and you can see from the accompanying photo that this grass takes up some vertical room. Even better, Miscanthus requires fewer chemical and mechanical inputs than corn, which is a consideration for water quality and soil fertility. Moreover, in many parts of the country farmers could reap two or more ‘crops’ a year (by mowing, as with hay). Highest productivity, in fact, came from the south in the poorest of agricultural soils. Thus Miscanthus may be a very good crop for marginal land and land not even used for crop production at present, which would lower its demand on food producing cropland further.
Miscanthus also serves as a ‘carbon sink’, accumulating and binding carbon in the soil at greater efficiency than any annual crops, such as the great biomass annual industrial hemp. Which is also a good biomass crop for fuels, fiber, oil and land conservation.
Perhaps some combination of alternatives may yet allow independence from fossil fuels, and that comes with improvements in global warming, general civilizational peace and prosperity, etc. If we were to plan ways to power our homes, churches, community buildings and businesses while at the same time developing biofuels for transportation and shipping, we might find the world economy and standards of living rising quickly instead of falling fast.
It would seem that we do still have some useful scientific creativity and inventiveness to offer the world in these trying times. All we need to do now is see to it that Big Oil doesn’t shove it all under the rug, and that we get the necessary government investments in these technologies.
Links:
Giant Grass Miscanthus Can Meet US Biofuels Goal Using Less Land
Hemp: Our Original Industrial Crop
MIT Scientist Offers Solar Revolution
ScienceNews reported last week that research on mice suggests these new fullerene-based wonder-fibers may be as dangerous as asbestos in the environment. The study showed that multi-walled (rigid) nanotube fibers longer than 15 micrometers cannot be removed from sensitive organic tissues by microphages, and that this causes inflammation that could lead to asbestos-like diseases including mesothelioma, a fatal form of cancer.
The study was published in the May 20 online edition of Nature Nanotechnology, and according to the Washington Post serves as a preliminary warning that there may be serious issues with the technology that warrant very careful planning to protect industrial workers, the public and the environment as nanotube fibers become more common in consumer and industrial products.
Companies around the world produce thousands of tons of nanomaterials a year, not all of them in the form that poses the threat identified by these researchers. Nanotubes alone are expected to become a multi-billion dollar industry within the next few years. While the government pumps about $1.5 billion a year into R&D for nanotechnology, only about 5 percent of that goes into health and safety concerns.
It would be quite refreshing if, for a change, we incorporated the lessons of history as we develop this promising new technology to forestall issues related to health, safety and environmental pollution before they become just more grim statistics attached to greed over due caution. And for this reason the situation bears watching to see if identified areas of concern are simply denied and swept under a profit rug, or rationally dealt with as if humans could accept responsibility – and minimize risks – per the less than hopeful side-effects of our intelligent designs.
In its mad bid to privatize and control the world’s agriculture and food supply with its patented biotech seeds and cushy revolving door within governmental regulatory agencies, Monsanto cannot be very happy with a recent Soil Association report that shows GM crops decrease yields, whether it’s cotton or soybeans or corn.
As reported in The Washington Post, the biotech industry immediately released yet another bought-and-paid-for report claiming totally opposite conclusions (some things don’t change just because the science is against you). The Soil Association report took a serious look at reality, something quite refreshing in this field. The material included among other citations:
• a 2007 study from Kansas State University that showed Roundup Ready soy has suffered “yield drag” since it was introduced, producing an average of 9-25% less per acre than conventional soy.
• a rigorous independent US study under controlled conditions demonstrating that Bt corn yields up to 12% less than conventional corn.
• an article in Nature Biotechnology reporting that Bt cotton doesn’t even express the engineered pesticide in 25% of some varieties sold under exclusive license.
The crop failures and their tragic effects on farmers in poorer nations may be a product of the technology itself according to some analysts.
US scientists have finally called for more access to biotech crop data so they can perform studies to assess environmental impacts of the technology as well. Indications are that herbicide resistance has increased herbicide usage (polluting land and water), led to pest immunity (with increased crop losses), creates “superweeds” from wild relatives that are hard to eradicate, and may even have something to do with massive die-offs of bees in recent years.
A quote from Michelle Marvier of Santa Clara University in the ag-dependent state of California pretty much sums up the situation -
“Since 1996 more than a billion acres have been planted with biotech crops in the U.S. We don’t really know what are the pros and cons of this important new agricultural technology.”
Huh. I thought these are just the sort of things USDA and the FDA were supposed to find out before the technology was deployed on such a massive scale. Who could have guessed that allowing corporate control of law, policy and regulatory oversight might lead to bad law, policy and regulatory oversight? Oops…
The team at ScienceDebate2008 reports that this cycle’s Presidential candidates have declined to engage in a debate on science policy issues on April 18th in Philadelphia. While not surprising – these are professional politicians trying to sell themselves to a largely science-illiterate public – the importance of staging such a debate with national media coverage has not diminished in the least.
The next target will focus on the Oregon primary venue in May. For the effort ScienceDebate2008 has forged a working relationship with PBS’s NOVA science series and NOW on PBS weekly news program for cosponsorship. NOW host David Brancaccio will moderate, supported by a panel of internationally recognized scientists everyone can agree upon. Three possible dates have been proposed to the campaigns.
Because science is so important to our society and to the livability of our abused planet, it is hoped that the candidates will agree to debate the science issues on one of the possible dates. Again, due to personal ignorance of many of the issues, each candidate should be allowed to bring their primary on-staff science advisor and be able to consult that advisor about details. Simply reading position statements drafted by their campaigns should not be considered sufficient grasp of the issues for the next leader of the free world.
If you would support the effort you can contact the candidates’ campaigns in favor of the initiative. Letters to the editor of local and regional newspapers can also help drum up public interest. And you can contact the debate team from the initiative’s website at ScienceDebate2008.
The National Research Council has identified and reported on Ten Questions that will shape 21st century earth science. Some may be a little surprised that these questions are still unanswered, having been told in no uncertain terms in science classes in the last century that science already had definitive answers to questions like how the earth and other planets in our solar system formed. Live and learn. Here’s a bare list of the identified questions…
1. How did earth and other planets form?
Scientists still do not know enough about how our planet got its elements to understand its evolution, or why other planets in our system are very different.
2. What happened during the first 500 million years?
Current scientific belief is that another planet collided with ours during the late formation stage, creating the moon and melting this planet all the way to its core. Yet unknown is how (and when) the Earth developed its atmosphere and oceans.
3. How did life begin?
Scientists hope to obtain evidence from rocks and minerals, as well as investigations of Mars and other members of our system.
4. How does earth’s interior work, and how does it effect the surface?
Science still cannot precisely describe the magnetic field-producing convection currents in the mantle and core, which means they have not yet modeled past evolution and cannot predict future evolution of the surface environment.
5. Why does earth have plate tectonics and continents?
Scientists still do not know when continents first formed, how they were preserved for billions of years, or how they will evolve in the future.
6. How are earth processes controlled by material properties?
Scientists hope to gain more understanding of plate tectonics and mantle convection by reducing the macroprocesses down to the atomic microscale. It is hoped this will allow prediction.
7. What causes climate to change – and how much can it change?
Study of our planet’s past climate extremes may lead to improved models that can predict the magnitude and consequences of climate change.
8. How has life shaped earth – and how has earth shaped life>
The ways that geology and biology influence each other are still unknown, though scientists do suspect life had a role in oxygenating the atmosphere, and know of geological events that caused mass extinctions.
9. Can earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and their consequences be predicted?
Scientists admit they may never be able to accurately predict earthquakes, but are getting better at predicting volcanic eruptions. Knowledge of the mantle movements could help.
10. How do fluid flow and transport affect the human environment?
Scientists hope to produce mathematical models that can predict the performance of natural fluid systems (surface and underground water, primarily), to contribute to better human management of natural resources and the environment.
Link:
Ten Questions
Government leaders, university presidents, leading scientists, engineering leaders, business executives, American innovators have been making the call loudly and with some help from NPR, MSNBC, the New York Times and Time Magazine as well as increasing numbers of other media outlets. Now that both the Democratic and Republican fields of potential Presidential candidates are down to two apiece, it’s time for Science Debate 2008 to happen.
The invitations to the candidates have been sent, the debate will be held at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia before the Pennsylvania primary on April 22. Thus far none of the candidates have responded that they will commit. While we all know that issues of science and technology are usually handled by advisors who have knowledge of the subjects, it would be nice to get a feel for whether the candidates for our country’s highest office have a basic grasp of those issues and a defensible position on policy. Or find out if all they’re good for is to mouth sound bites their handlers feed them.
If you’re interested in what you may be able to do to help convince them, visit the Science Debate 2008 website and sign on. And it wouldn’t hurt to write to the campaigns and request the candidates’ participation while you’re at it.
They’re calling it Science Debate 2008. It’s a grassroots initiative to petition for a Presidential candidates forum specifically about issues of science and technology. The list of science bloggers in the Blogger Coalition is impressive, and represents almost all of Seed Media Group’s ScienceBlogs stable. The list of initial signers includes Nobel Prize laureates, academics, corporate CEOs, congresscritters, political science policy advisors, journal editors and regulatory agency veterans.
I heard about the initiative from Steven “DarkSyde” Andrew’s front page post announcing it over on Daily Kos on December 10th. He called for bipartisan and independent science bloggers to sign up, so I emailed the group through their form and offered my support. I didn’t get a reply and I’m not listed as a supporter, but I’m going to talk about it anyway.
Among the science bloggers who have already posted about the subject is a favorite of mine, “GrrlScientist” over at Living the Scientific Life. While I certainly agree with the description of why a science debate would be good – “intellectual stagnation in public policies” – I was not so impressed with Grrl’s complete rejection of sociopolitical realities in favor of current theoretical consensus in her particular field of science. She concludes:
“It is hoped that, by placing each candidate’s science and technology policies squarely into the public consciousness, the average American will realize that not “believing in” evolution unacceptable, that it constitutes intellectual dishonesty that is tantamount to not “believing in” gravity…”
Um… that sort of attitude isn’t going to fly in the national political arena, with candidates or with voters. Not that I don’t agree that public rejection of current theoretical consensus can interfere with necessary social and political policies that indeed are the responsibility of politicians to develop and implement. But politicians are not scientists and are not required or expected to be scientists. That’s what “science advisors” are for, along with the junior staffers who type up the position statements for candidates’ campaign websites.
That’s how it works for the politicians who get elected too. In the US, government is not a dictatorship of current scientific consensus. I do not believe it’s going to turn into one if scientists insist on displaying their arrogance on television while insulting the politicians, the voting public, and democratic political philosophy.
So I went over to Bora Zivkovic’s blog A Blog Around the Clock, because Zivkovic has so far posted 4 different questions he would ask candidates if this debate takes place. This can help us get a better feel for the issues that concern scientists as well as an idea of how such a debate would be conducted. Zivkovic’s first question is excellent:
“If elected President, what do you intend to do to make sure that you receive trustworthy scientific information and that your policies are based on the best available empirical knowledge about the world? What do you see as the primary role of the Presidential Science Advisor? In what way, if any, would you change the current federal framework of implementing science-related policy?”
It’s a good question because science is quite notorious for harboring opposing and highly contentious views in many disciplines and sub-disciplines. Simply following the science news for a few weeks will give you a general idea of how much incoming research “contradicts” other scientists’ older research, and answers to questions of detail change depending on who you’re asking today. If you care to follow the in-house debates, they’re as rancorous as anything politics can dish out (short of the notorious Hamilton-Burr duel or notable assassinations and impeachments).
Zivkovic’s second question concerns science funding:
“How would you address the current problems of scientific research in the USA – stopping the brain-drain, attracting foreign students, energizing young Americans to consider careers in science, and encouraging development of science in other countries (with free flow of information between nations as well as between scientists and the public in the USA) while still retaining the US dominance?”
Another good question. Not an easy one to answer, either. Looks to me like some work on science education needs to factor in here, particularly at the university level where a scientist gets out of grad school so far in student debt they’ll never dig out. Same problem is happening with doctors (and all other professions), so doing something about that would help everybody. As far as “US dominance” is concerned, that may not be something politicians can do much about. Seems that distinction is up to scientists and their institutions to preserve – if they can. Scientific knowledge is not something that can be held exclusive while at the same time encouraging a ‘free flow of information’.
Zivkovic asks about the complex issue of climate change in question 3, a subject bound to take up a lot of space at a science debate. Question 4 mentions science education and asks for a candidate’s position on who s/he will trust to be “the voice of true authority on a scientific question.”
I’d imagine the answer to that will be no different than it’s been for decades. The NAS panel overviews parsed by ‘expert’ hired science staff and filtered through the advisor to the politician. Perhaps this debate should be held with the candidates’ respective science advisors, who should at least know more about science than any of the politicians running for President.
I understand that most in the scientific community are upset at the Bush administration’s reliance on marginally capable, ideologically biased advisors who’s advice and operational tactics have led to some really awful science policies. But they couldn’t have accomplished that if science were absolute (as opposed to provisional) and there were no disagreements about evidence, interpretations or theoretics. What can politicians be expected to do about disagreements among scientists about science?
I’ll keep my eyes open for more science bloggers and other supporters weighing in with their own issues and concerns and questions. Maybe they can just choose the best questions and send the list to all the candidates well before the debate so their science advisors can come up with answers and the writers can draft responses. And so the candidates can practice their delivery in front of mirrors and focus groups so they won’t look like complete idiots.
If scientists want to play in the political arena – The Show – they should give a thought to its customs, formalities and rules before taking the stage. Otherwise I fear the program will turn out to be more sit-com than useful educational resource.
Links: